+61401395441 leigh@optomly.com.au

Let’s say that you have an Behavioural Optometry Practice. Perhaps it’s young, say ten years old. You know that your practice needs new patients, or the bills will pile up and you’ll never be able to leave the office.
You heard that you can get thirty new patients per month from Facebook. (Tap here for the Youtube Clip.)

But you’re just getting started with Facebook for your Practice.

How do you get a steady stream of new patients?

First, write down what success looks like. The goal of using social media is to create a group of people who know, like and trust you. They are the people who attend real appointments with your practice.

Second, these people need to be in your area. From talking with patients, you know that most of your current patients travel up to one hour to see you. (I’m in the country…if you’re in the city, patients may not drive very far.)

Third, you don’t just want people around you. You want the right patients that support your practice. They would ideally be vision therapy patients….parents of school-aged children who have a binocular vision problem. These parents love technology. Especially when they see your new Vision Therapy system. You know, the new system that uses Virtual Reality and allows children to play Games.  The kids and parents love it and wish that they could join in.

Fourth, you need to get more Likes on your new Page. The easiest way is to use your existing patient database. Around two years ago, you asked your staff to start collecting patient mobile phone numbers. You can leverage these numbers to create an Ad that is sent to them on Facebook. Then ask them to Like and Share your Page. And mention that they can go into the draw to win a $200 gift certificate towards their next pair of glasses.

Fifth, you want this group of people to be interested and engaged with what you’re saying. You want to have a mixture of content that these parents love to engage with. So, what types of posts should you create?

The best solution is to have a mixture of posts, like Ice Cream flavours. In one flavour, you want to share useful posts from other people. For example, the Optometry Australia ‘Good Vision For Life’ campaign. Or your comments on an interesting journal article or abstract, that parents would appreciate.

In another ‘flavour’, you want to increase the engagement on your page. You know that videos do well, and you’ve seen a video of a baby wearing glasses. This type of content gets lots of likes and you’ve seen a lot of people reached with this simple video.

In another post ‘flavour’, you also want to include promotional posts. This is where you directly ask your patients to make an appointment with your practice. Or give you their email address in exchange for a useful PDF guide about eyes.

With these three content types, you can vary the mixture of posts to increase the engagement you get, or appointments that you see.

Video on Facebook is increasing. It’s becoming like a TV channel. What could you talk about? Answer common questions that you hear in your practice. What’s something that you explain every day in your practice? Tap the record button and answer the question just like you would if a patient was talking to you.

Live video is great for interaction and getting more people to see your page. Remember that presentation you did about Vision Therapy a couple of years ago? Use it again on Facebook Live. You don’t even have to be on camera. Just point it at your Powerpoint slides and talk away. The longer that you’re live, the more people in your area that you’ll reach.

How do you know that your new Page is working? Thanks to your new online appointment software, you can track where my new appointments are coming from. And you can track how many people tap my phone number on Facebook.

Using Facebook, your practice can attract a steady stream of new patients. You don’t have to hold your breath when the next bill that arrives.

And you can say yes to your next vacation!!

Free Download: How to use Google to bring you more potential patients

Free Download: How to use Google to bring you more potential patients

Need new patients? Don't get left behind. Download the guide "How to use Google to bring you more potential patients" as seen in Optometry Australia News 2018

 

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